I'm enjoying Infusion 6 of Ming Quian An Ji Bai Cha from Seven Cups. My day began at 8:30 am with the postman delivering 2 beautiful pots from Andrzej Beros. I decided to test the Hobin with a delicate green tea, since its glazed on the inside.

Pictures to follow - my iPod camera isn't up to taking good photos of the subtle glaze.

I began my tea day with a session with Seven Cups Da Fo Long Jing - very delicate and sweet. I've been experimenting with temperature/time combos and found that this tea brews best, to my taste, at 180°. There are just a few leaves remaining in the tin, but they will shortly be replaced by Seven Cups Shi Feng Long Jing. I've been brewing these greens in my Seong-Il Kyusu. It turned out to be glazed inside by the firing process, so it doesn't work as well as tokoname for Japanese greens, but does very nicely for Chinese greens.

Unro sencha from Ippodo, brewed at 80°C for 1 min. Their website says it can be brewed with boiling water too, but I'm still afraid of doing it with senchas. Rich in bitterness and promises of umami (might take a few tries to draw them out). An unexpectedly significant amount of caffeine too, which is welcome since it's been a slow day so far.

Devoted135 wrote:Yutaka Midori shincha from O-cha this afternoon. So tasty! This was my first harvest since discovering Japanese greens, and I think that this will likely become a yearly purchase for me.

This is likely the only selection I have purchased every year since reallllly getting into Japanese greens in 2005. I do not see that changing!

I have never been a huge fan of Sae Midori from Kagoshima ... it always seemed too mild for my tastes. This year a few changes ...

I have really been enjoying SM from Shizuoka from NOTTI 3 ... kicked up a notch. Usually I have been brewing 1:1, but the main adjustments I made this year is more leaf, more time, lower temp. So for this one I went 1.25-1.33 grams leaf per 1 ounce (30 ml) water. I increased brew time to 1:15 at 155* (EDIT: NON PREHEATED KYUSU). BAM! Really blew me away.

I had a bag of Shincha SM from Kagoshima from O-Cha sitting here and decided to give this a go with the adjusted parameters. Outstanding!!! Better than any previous attempts with O-Cha's Kagoshima SM.

I would say that the Shizuoka offering is more veggie while the Kagoshima offering is sweeter. Both really good but different!

Just finished a session with Seven Cups Shi Feng Long Jing. Very good, but my weak taste memory leads me to believe that I enjoyed the Da Fo Long Jing more. Heresy, I know, so I should have saved some for a comparison!